The Philips Hue light bulbs in the broadband households of Louisville, Kentucky can change color to display the severity of air quality warnings. Amazon Echo smart speakers deliver flash briefings from the mayor’s office and tell Louisville residents the date of the next junk pickup in their neighborhood.

“Broadband first” is a major policy goal at USTelecom, USTelecom Vice President Diane Holland said at the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council’s Broadband and Social Justice Summit in a panel discussion on broadband and 5G deployment.

Global mobile internet traffic is expected to grow seven times from 2016 to 2021, and U.S. mobile traffic will grow five times, according to a new mobile traffic forecast released by the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI).

Next-generation networks increasingly will play a critical role in upgrading the efficiency of the nation’s infrastructure assets, USTelecom President & CEO Jonathan Spalter said during a panel focused on infrastructure and investment at NARUC’s 2017 winter meeting. Spalter appeared on a panel with executives from the water, oil and gas industries.

Technical glitches in online streaming for this year’s Super Bowl marks the third year in a row that over-the-top providers faced challenges in delivering the big game to cord cutters. As the Patriots rallied against the Falcons in the fourth quarter, viewers using the Fox Sports Go app had their connection go down for a brief, but critical interval.

Data thefts are the stuff of lurid headlines and baleful identity protection ads. While they may not be as pervasive as death and taxes, data thefts have impacted the lives of nearly two-thirds of Americans, according to a new analysis by Pew Research. From fraudulent charges on a credit card to a hijacked online social media account, 64 percent of Americans have been hit with some form of data theft, the study said.